Ayariga Arrested Over Death Threats

The 2012 flagbearer of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Hassan Ayariga, was last Wednesday hauled to the Nima Police Station for allegedly threatening David Apasera, the national treasurer of the party.

The PNC treasurer was demanding an amount of GH¢1.3 million being party campaign funds, to be accounted for by the former flagbearer.

DAILY GUIDE gathered that Mr. Ayariga was discharged on bail the same day after he was made to write a statement. The conditions of his bail were not immediately known.

Adams Akane, another party member and former special aide to Hassan Ayariga, had raised issues of disappeared party funds which he blamed on the 2012 party’s flagbearer. Mr. Akane’s estimation was a whopping GH¢1.6 million.

In an interview with DAILY GUIDE on Sunday, Mr. Apasera explained that he had to drag Hassan Ayariga to the Nima Police Station because his persistent inquiry into the disappearance of the party funds was met with threats on telephone and through text messages from the embattled PNC flagbearer, who the party said had refused to account for the campaign cash.

He said on one occasion, Mr. Ayariga called him and threatened to match him ‘boot-for-boot’ and deal ‘with him’.

A text message allegedly sent by Mr. Ayariga to Mr. Akane and forwarded to Mr. Apasera read, ‘This is not the time to sort out any of you people, I will deal with all of you!’

Mr. Apasera continued, ‘When I got this other text message, I said this is not a person to joke with because he is quite a dangerous person…so I said ‘let me go and tell the Police. So I told the police; I came to the Nima Police Station to report it, so last week they invited us and we met there.’

Mr. Ayariga refused to make any comment about his arrest when DAILY GUIDE put a call through to him on Monday afternoon.

He rather referred the paper to his spokesperson, one David Niibi, who denied knowledge of the invitation by the Nima Police Command.

According to Mr. Apasera, the missing funds were meant to purchase motorbikes for the party’s 2012 campaign and for remunerating the party’s 26,000 polling station agents at GH¢50 each.

According to Mr. Apasera, he raised the issue because highly-placed sources within the party had hinted that the GH¢1.3 million was handed over to the flagbearer.

But Mr. Ayariga has denied knowledge of the money.

‘They were telling me that they gave him GH¢50 for every polling station agent who was deployed to 26,000 polling stations during the 2012 general elections, so I went to his house with another party member, but he said ‘they are telling lies,” Mr. Apasera told DAILY GUIDE.

According to Mr. Apasera, the denial compelled him to raise the issue with the party’s Standing Committee, insisting that they investigated the circumstances under which party funds disappeared into thin air. The first probe was headed by one Haruna Bayariga, former PNC Member of Parliament for Sisala West, who, in the middle of the investigations, strangely lost interest and declined to continue.